


Lost Anemone

by kigamin



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Abuse, Blood, Cheese, Dirty Jokes, Drinking, Everyone is Queer, F/M, Fluff, Homicide, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Manipulation, Memory Loss, Original Characters - Freeform, PTSD mention/symptoms, Possible Suicide Mention, Romance, Set in the future, Trauma, Violence, aged-up characters (24/25 years old), assassination attempt, death of a friend mentioned, depressive symptoms, hxhbb, main female OC, mentions of child abuse/human trafficking, mentions of dysphoria and misgendering, polyamorous (m/m/f), pop culture references, torture (Zoaldyeck stuff)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-02-29 19:33:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18784759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kigamin/pseuds/kigamin
Summary: When Killua is hired to kill a Tanalean princess, he doesn’t question it — he doesn’t need to. He is the heir of the Zoaldyeck family and he has blind trust in his family. After spending all his life training to take the lead of his family, he has no time for doubt or questions — no matter the dreams from another life that haunt his most painful days. However, on the night of the assassination, the hunted becomes the hunter: the princess is a fake, the assassination is a trap, and he isn’t who he thinks he is. The woman that emerges from the disguise — Hana — has set him up for reasons he can’t comprehend… and she isn’t alone. One nen exorcism later, with the nen curse plucked from his mind, Killua realizes one thing: the past twelves years of his life are a lie — a web of forged memories planted into his mind by his brother to control him. He is then left with the gaping void of a past he can never recover, the bitter taste of his family’s betrayal, a blurry sense of self, and more questions than he knows what to do with. All he can do is rebuild himself on the ruins of something he can’t even remember, with the ghost of his stolen memories standing between him and those people who call themselves his friends.





	1. Prologue: Forget-Me-Not

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thank you for picking this story. I’m pretty excited to share it and I hope you’ll like reading it as much as I liked writing it. The story is supposed to be relatively light, besides the initial dark setup and theme, so I hope the summary wasn’t too misleading. 
> 
> A good thing to note is that this story is complete! I’ve finished writing it and it’s around 84k words. I plan on updating once to twice a week depending on feedback, my free time, chapter length, and my schedule. I also rate this story as T for now, as it will not contain mature content until the end. I will then adjust the rating once the story reaches the mature content.
> 
> This is a KillugonOC polyam story, so the main focus will be on Killua, my OC Hana, and Gon. However, you’ll also see quite a bit of Leorio, Cheadle, Kurapika, Senritsu, as well as some other OCs, Hisoka, and Illumi! If you’re familiar with my other stories, you’ll notice the same OCs, but you don’t need to have read them to follow this one; it’s completely independent and every OC is treated as a new character. 
> 
> You might notice that I’ll be using flowers’ language a lot in this story; I encourage you to check out Little Knight Mik’s stories as he inspired me a lot with flowers’ language and how to incorporate it in a story! Thank you Ren, for inspiring me and for encouraging me!
> 
> I would also like to thank bugtongue for their precious help with polyam resources! Thank you Eddy, I learned a lot thanks to you. 
> 
> Glittercracker and jyuanka, thank you for reading my summary and giving me pointers to adapt it and make it better! Jyu, thank you for helping me with the title! 
> 
> The biggest thank-you to my good friend hxhhasmysoul who beta-read this fic from prologue to epilogue, who insulted Illumi many times, and whose suggestions and corrections made this story so much better!! Thank you hon, I love you!!  
> Of course, a big thank you to a certain someone who has read this fic five times and who casually makes me fangirl with her messages: you know who you are, and you are amazing!! 
> 
> One last note: there will be a glossary of flowers with flower meanings at the end of the prologue if you want to decrypt the future chapters’ titles! You can refer yourself to it in the future. Unless you want to research them yourself :p Wikipedia is more than enough for that, but some flowers did need a little more sources! It shouldn’t be a brake in the story though :)
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this fic! 
> 
> Happy reading!

⋇

# Prologue: Forget-Me-Not

⋇

“Kil, do you know what forget-me-nots symbolize?”

Sweat, blood. Beading on his forehead, trailing down his temples. They met and mixed and then parted away and burned and froze and then trickled away. Rusty, sticky, _nasty_.

“Eternal love,” Illumi answered his own question. “That’s one of their meanings.”

Killua’s hair stuck to his skin. It was everywhere, long white locks tangled and red with blood, stringy strands that stuck to his lips and his tongue. He had tried to spit it out; it hadn’t worked.

“They also mean, ‘don’t forget me’,” Illumi continued. He paced around the table, finger trailing the manacles that trapped Killua on the restraining device. “Did you forget us, Kil?”

“I wish I could,” Killua hissed, the words slipping through his gritted teeth. Old wounds seethed as he wriggled on the device — black dots clouded his sight, the space of a breath.

Illumi stopped. His empty gaze settled on Killua’s shivering figure, as though he examined the weather. “You’re in your twenties, now. You should know better than to speak like that.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Illumi sighed and resumed his pacing. “You’re the heir. It’s time you take your rightful place.”

“I want none of it!”

Bottomless abysses stared back at him. Through them, Killua saw disappointment. “Do you know how long it took to develop this machine?” he changed the topic, his tone almost cheery, an eager creator proud of his new invention. “Father and I made it just for you. From the moment you left, ten years ago, to just a little a while ago. It’s revolutionary, isn’t it? A machine that induces a forced zetsu, and manacles that you can’t break. Can you imagine, the challenge? Developing chains that not even _you_ could break?”

Wrath boiled in Killua’s veins. It seethed and sought a release it could never find. His aura was still, poised. Suppressed. His lightning didn’t answer to him. In a fit of anger, he tried, again and again, to break the chains.

They didn’t break.

Illumi shook his head in disapprobation. For a moment, Killua’s winded, feverish breath was the only sound in the room. In comparison, his head was a mess — questions and regrets and fear and longing. Gon would be dead worried about him; he couldn’t just give up. And yet, he had looked for an exit at least a hundred times, to no avail. He knew that room by heart for having spent endless nights there in his childhood; he should know he would find none.

The only way in or out was the same one door.

That door then opened — a metallic clatter, followed by the rhythmic sound of coiling chains and unwinding mechanisms.

A person clad in black that Killua had never seen entered the room, their face hidden under a mask. Their heavy boots left marks on the floor — the steps echoing in the solitary room, bouncing off its empty walls.

In their hands, there was a garland of forget-me-nots.

“You know, Kil, I never say things without a reason.”

When the flowers touched Killua’s skin, everything in him unraveled. Memories, love, identity. Years and years of life down the drain as the garland wrapped around his forehead.

And all he could do was scream.

⛬

“You can’t imagine the trouble it took to bring you back home.”

He opened one eye. Then the other. Peering through blurry slits; searching for something he didn’t know. Pain pounded in his head, strikes of lightning skewering his brain, slashing through reason. Withered forget-me-nots tangled in his hair, tickling his skin like crawling insects.

When he tried to move his wrists, they were bound.

“You worried us sick, going on and about with that loud island kid. He was a bad influence on you. I’m so mad at myself for not protecting you more. I should have known he would corrupt you. I should have known better, as your older brother.”

His ankles were bound, too. He turned his head, looking for an explanation, a sign, a light — anything that told him where he was and who he was and why his ghastly brother was caressing his hair. But it was dark — too dark. And his head hurt, hurt, hurt.

He was so tired.

“Mom cried every day, even years after you were gone. She was always so sad that you had abandoned us, and so worried for you. ‘God knows what kind of lies this kid is feeding our Kil,’ she would say all the time. I mean, she was right, wasn’t she? She almost gave up hope because of him.”

Illumi wouldn’t stop talking, his apathetic voice gnawing through whatever little sanity Killua had left. He let out a weak moan as another headache sizzled in his skull before spreading through his neck. His ribcage weighed tons, as did each and every one of his limbs. Grounded and heavy. Sluggish. Lead in his bones and syrup in his veins. Each breath was laboured, shallow, as though water filled his lungs, a crushing wave pressing against his chest.

His lips wouldn’t form words. His eyes wouldn’t settle on anything. His body wouldn’t respond to him.

He was too weak, too tired.

So, _so_ tired.

“It’s okay now, though. I forgive you for how much you’ve hurt us. You didn’t know better. You were young and foolish, but you will learn. Father told us he too tried to run away when he was young; can you believe that? He defied Grandpa Zeno and ran off to see the world, and then he came back with mother.”

Illumi’s thumb lingered on Killua’s forehead.

Killua snapped his eyes shut.

“Never forget, Kil, that family will always be there for you. Even when you fuck up, when you treat us like you did, we’ll never abandon you. You can always count on us. You know that, right? We’re here for you. Always.”

The manacles on his wrist and ankles tightened. A familiar kind of pain fizzed through his body then — he reconciled with it, embraced it. It cracked and sparked and whipped with lightning that tore through the dark.

“It will take time to rehabilitate you, but it’s okay. We’ll make it work. You spent so much time messing around with that islander, you grew soft and fragile and emotional. That’s no good, no good at all. But you shouldn’t be too concerned — Father and I will take care of that. Isn’t that amazing? It’ll be like none of that ever happened.”

The electricity stopped and Killua gasped, panting, spasms shaking in his body as bolts of static still crept upon his body.

A door opened. Its hinges wailed, rusty with the decades of dried blood and sweat that coated it. In a way, Killua felt like he had already heard that door open, not so long ago.

Through it, a person walked in, their silhouette a dark, uncertain shape against the bright light behind them.

When the door closed, all was dark again.

“Is it ready?” Illumi asked, his hand still resting on Killua’s forehead.

The silhouette walked toward them, their steps clacking against the stone — the sounds barely reached Killua, muffled by his underwater breathing.

“Yes,” the stranger answered. “Phase two can start.”

What Killua saw next was a beast that would haunt his nightmares for long, long years. A flower with teeth and thorns, with claws and petals. Dark and discordant and hungry — for _him_.

When the beast’s teeth sank into his skull, Killua screamed. He screamed as it burrowed through his mind, and he screamed as it burned through his past. He screamed, again and again, terror and agony rippling through his throat, and he cried, and he shook, and he bled.

Then, he stilled.

⛬

Light came through a small opening in the door, falling on Killua’s feet.

His breathing was still, his body void of energy.

His hands were free, but he couldn’t move.

Dried blood webbed on his neck, parts of it still wet, cold streams following the bumps and creases on his body.

He turned his head toward his brother by his side. With a groggy voice, Killua asked, “What happened, Aniki?”

Illumi cocked his head on the side, examining his little brother. His cold fingers passed through Killua’s hair, graceful and cold as grave. “You were cursed during a mission. Father and I hired a nen exorcist to cure you. You had us so worried, Kil. We thought we had lost you. If we had known that assassination contract was a trap, we wouldn’t have sent you.”

“A trap?”

“Yes. A rival family, probably. Since you’re the heir, they probably wanted to eliminate you — and the competition with it.”

Killua’s head hurt at those words — _the heir_. He had always referred to himself as the heir, yet it sounded wrong now. He wasn’t sure why. “So I failed?”

“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t even a real job. We got conned. But all that matters is that you’re safe.”

Killua mumbled something he himself wasn’t sure of. He passed a hand on his forehead, where a prickling sensation still throbbed. There, he found a cluster of small dents. They were still bloody. “I’m sorry. Where am I now?”

Illumi paused for an instant — then he resumed stroking Killua’s hair. For a moment, an unbelievable moment, Killua thought he saw him smile.

“You’re home, Kil.”

⛬

 

# Glossary

⋇

**Amaranth** : Immortality, immortal love

**Amaryllis** : Pride, immense beauty, success after a hard time

**Anemone** : Forsaken, sickness (negative), anticipation, undying love. Will close up on themselves during the rain and reopen afterwards

**Arborvitae** : Everlasting friendship

**Aster** : Symbol of love, daintiness, talisman of love, trusting

**Camelia** : Unpretending excellence. Love, passion, deep desire ( _red_ ). Longing ( _pink_ ). Adoration ( _white_ )

**Carnation (** **_pink_ ** **)** : Motherhood, a woman’s love, a mother’s love

**Cypress** : Death, mourning, despair, sorrow

**Dahlia** : Elegance and dignity (any color). Dishonesty and betrayal (red)

**Eglantine Rose** : A wound to heal

**Forget-me-not** : True love, don’t forget me.

**Gladiolus** : Strength of character, honor, conviction

**Laurels** : Ambition, success, renown

**Lilac** **_(purple)_ **: First emotion of love

**Lily (** **_pink_ ** **)** : Admiration, infatuation, desire

**Lily of the Valley** : Sweetness, humility, returning happiness, trust

**Lobelia** : Malevolence

**Love-lies-bleeding** : Hopelessness

**Marigold** : Pain and grief

**Moonflower** : Dreaming of love

**Pansy** : Thoughts (according to Ophelia of Hamlet), sometimes referring to "lover's thoughts"

**Plumeria** : Perfection, springtime, new beginnings

**Primrose** : Eternal love

**Rose** : True love ( _red_ ). Desire, passion, joy of life, youth, energy ( _light pink_ ). Grace ( _pink_ )

**Rosebud** : New love

**Snowdrops** : Consolation, hope

**Sunflower** : Pure and lofty thoughts, adoration, longevity, loyalty

**Thorn-apple** : disguise

**Thorns** : “ _Thorns philosophically have always been associated [in dreams] with the stinging emotions like a sting to the consciousness_.” [1] Pain.

**Thistle** : Nobility, warning

**Wisteria** : Welcoming

 


	2. Catch the Fickle Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey there! As promised, here’s a quick update since last chapter was pretty short.   
> Thank you to everyone who followed, faved, and reviewed this story! You’re the best :D  
> I hope you enjoy this!

⋇

#  Chapter 1 - Catch the Fickle Rose

⋇

**11:23 P.M.**

York Shin City. The city that never slept. 

More like, the city that never  _ chilled _ . Be it day or not, you could be sure you’d find some asshole in the street looking for trouble, picking fights with randoms in bars, shops, nightclubs, or a dark corner in a deserted alley.

That night was no exception. In the last hours Killua had spent wandering in the infamous metropolis, he had been the exclusive audience to no less than a dozen brawls and gang fights. It was amusing, watching these people curse everyone and their mother — especially the mothers — and break each other’s noses in sloppy fights. It was amusing, and it was almost cute.

You would think that the higher you moved up the social ladder, the less you’d see that tendency to violence. 

False.

The clientele of the luxurious and overhyped Delexo hotel was no less confrontative, and it wasn’t just because half of its members’ steps could be traced back to the streets where they ruled over the biggest gangs. They could be born in silks and pearls and still have the tongue of a viper.

Killua knew that crowd best. They exchanged sugar-coated backhanded insults in hushed tones while smiling their most fake smiles. They hid disdain in their polished laughs and cold stares, spread rumors to entertain their vapid routine. It was all show, pretense. Superficial.

His least favorite targets. 

“Sir, would you like a glass of champagne?”

Killua turned toward the waiter who had spoken, a man standing next to him with a plate of champagne glasses. His neutral expression was reflected in the plate. 

“No, thanks.”

The waiter nodded before he left. Killua watched him go, cautious of spies. Nothing could stop him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be pissed if anyone tried. So without waiting longer, Killua moved from his spot, blending further among the guests.

He had a fickle princess to catch. 

⛬

Infiltrating this party held at the Delexo Hotel’s private lounge by a notable donator and contributor to York Shin’s development had been as easy as breathing. The security guards posted at the entrance served more as decoration than actual security — they sure were prettier than the expensive atrocities flanked across the walls for ‘aesthetic’. So far, they had let two people who weren’t on the guest list enter the lounge — one of them being Killua himself, and the other a tall man with tousled black hair and cheeky olive eyes who was cute as hell and up to no good. They pretended to pat handbags, looking for an imaginary bomb, when very real razor blades were in the lining of the coat the woman they had just let through was carrying along.

Of course, Killua wasn’t complaining. Milluki had forged him an invitation in case it was asked, but all he had needed to do was flash a flirty smile at the security agent and act like he belonged there and — ta da — there he was. A definitely-not-a-guest in a place where he had definitely not been invited to, looking for a woman he had to kill.

He didn’t have to look for too long. She made herself found.

He heard her before he saw her.

She was laughing in the main lounge, a floor below his, sitting with the other not-guest Killua had seen earlier, a glass of champagne that was surely not the first one in her hand. Her laugh was vibrant, like chiming bells and just as bright. 

Killua flipped through his phone’s picture, matching the picture of his target to the woman he had found. With the golden tan in her skin, silver blonde in her hair, and what seemed like green eyes from this distance, she was a perfect match. He would have to get closer to her to confirm it, but it was a good enough start. 

He had his eyes on the target.

⛬

Her name was Oxana Styles, born Janav, twenty-four years old, married young to a Sahertan businessman. She was part of a family that used to be nobility back when monarchies were still a thing in Tanalea — a long,  _ long  _ time ago. 

Historically, before it was a democracy, Tanalea used to be a congregation of tribes of varying sizes, each with their own hierarchical system, but all of them with a noble family at its head that shared the lands and ruled over the tribe. Nobility was more of a smaller-scale ruling system than an attribution of worth; each tribe had a chief, the chief’s offspring would inherit their rule, and if the chief remained childless they could pass their rule onto a tribesperson of their choice. That meant there were as many chiefs as there were tribes, and there were as many princes and princesses as there were chief children.

In the modern days, while all formerly noble families had relinquished their power, there still remained a tradition of attributing titles and building an unofficial hierarchy among them; the titles were proper to Tanalean culture and purely symbolic, but the higher hierarchy was often also the larger wealth. 

There was no proper word to translate his target’s title, but ‘princess’ was close enough. Since the Janav clan was small, she wasn’t too famous and had little presence in the media, but her wealth was nothing to laugh at and she was looking to increase it during her visit in York Shin City. York Shin had no shortage of hungry businessmen looking for opportunities and new deals, especially with Tanalean people, since Tanalea was constantly growing and rebuilding itself after the Kumotori crisis that wrecked it decades ago. 

You’d expect the equivalent of a young princess looking for business partners to behave like one, but in the past few hours Killua had spent examining her, all he had seen was a fickle, flirty, friendly woman. Her bodyguards had given up on trying to keep up with her, so they had posted themselves on different sides of the lounge to watch her and didn’t seem to have noticed a stranger dressed in black observing their protégée. 

The protégée in question was having the time of her life. She switched from one dance partner to another, laughed louder than what was socially acceptable, touched people on their arm when they flirted with her, didn’t seem to care about the haughty side-glances thrown her way by posh people disturbed by her “culturally clashing behavior” — the woman standing next to Killua was pretty caught up on his target’s Tanalean origins.

He almost caught himself rooting for the eccentric princess — “yeah, you go girl, keep making these racist assholes mad”— before he reminded himself he had to kill her. It was almost too bad. She was quite the social butterfly.

“Oh you can’t just say that!” she exclaimed, then burst out laughing. Even from his spot, Killua heard her as if she were standing next to him. Her partner, the handsome not-guest from earlier, was laughing with her, but he seemed to do so more because of her reaction than whatever had made her laugh in the first place. “I can’t believe you could betray me like this.”

Killua arched an eyebrow. 

The princess wasn’t just sociable, she was also a real blabbermouth. An open book to him. So far he had learned that she only liked her macarons from that one old woman’s pastry shop who gave them the perfect “cronch and floof” balance. And that her designer had had to come up with two different versions of her dress because he had insisted the colors scheme would change depending on the hour of the day. And that she hated sushi, abhorred the thought of ever putting anything that vaguely looked like fish in her mouth — “you don’t understand, I used to have a pet fish when I was younger,” she had justified, and yes, the fish was named Nemo.

She was making this too easy for him. Without her bodyguards shielding her, he could pick up on each and every one of her mannerisms, analyze her body language and tics and accent, without anyone interfering. Her hand that often hovered over her stomach subconsciously protected old or new pain — a scar, a wound, maybe chronic pains that she tried to ease, or insecurities about her body. The stretch marks on her thighs that showed when she sat and crossed her legs had to be from a sudden growth spurt in her teenage years. The bruises on her arms and her toned muscles indicating she was athletic, maybe knew self-defense, might put up a fight. 

It was easy to find details that told a person’s story. 

Somehow, her story always ended with him killing her. 

His hand gripped the cold handrail. He leaned onto the banister, resting his weight on it.

He shouldn’t be too bothered by what he about to do. It was his boring routine — listing all the different ways he could kill a person when analyzing the little things that told their story. He was used to it, and it was what he had been raised for, trained for,  _ born  _ for. Whenever he met people, he first assessed how he could kill them. It was an automatism, something his father had taught him. And his father was rarely wrong.

The princess’s bright voice echoed in the whole lounge as she shared an anecdote with her partner. Killua watched her, writing a story where no one wanted her dead — an alternative to the somber path she was headed on and where he was the dead-end. 

Maybe she could be a designer. It would suit her — she had style and was neat, fashionable, and approachable. She could launch her own fashion collections and sign deals with Sahertan businessmen to spread her brand. She had talked briefly about education and girl literacy in her country — she could be an ambassador for universal access to education. She could find someone to love, maybe even during that party. It could be that man, the not-guest who had been courting her for the past hour who didn’t seem to mind her loudness, or the woman who had nodded at her as they drank champagne together earlier.

She could have a future. Her story could, maybe  _ should  _ end differently. 

He sighed. He liked to fantasize about another life, another timeline, another universe, where  he guessed someone’s story just for fun and not to find their weakest point and kill them. A life where he was something else than an assassin, than the heir of the Zoaldyecks, where he had other goals and aspirations. He could travel the world — there was so much to see, so much food to try, so many people to meet, so many stories to hear. He could be out there, living his own life without any expectations.

It shouldn’t be conceivable. Yet here he was.

It was a dream. It kept him busy when he was bored, lulled him when he was tired, distracted him when he was lost in thought. A dream where his future was different from what his family had planned for him. 

Killua closed his eyes. 

Illumi wouldn’t like hearing that. And it was preposterous, anyway. Killua had spent the past twelve years preparing for his position at the head of his family, and he had no intention of disappointing them. After everything they had done for him, letting them down was out of the question. They had put all their greatest efforts into making him inherit his father’s business; they  _ depended  _ on him.

Besides, he had things to do. 

The princess was retreating in her room. 

⛬

“Hana? Hana, do you receive me?”

Leorio was trying his best to not look too suspicious. He was playing the role of a princess’s bodyguard and bodyguards knew to remain calm in any situation… A hard feat, when his heart was beating speed records in his chest and his hands were clammy and his legs were so wiry he thought they’d snap in half and he would fall, a long, willowy man crushed by the weight of his own ever-growing anxiety. He wiped his hands on his slacks — Hana wouldn’t answer. 

“She’s probably flirting with a pretty guy; relax.”

Leorio narrowed his eyes, glaring at Cheadle. “I can’t.  _ Relax _ .”

“I can see that, but you’re gonna have to. From the look of it, you’re not gonna hear from her until she’s, you know, dead.”

“Thanks, you’re helping a lot,” Leorio deadpanned. 

Cheadle took a sip of her sangria. “You’re welcome.”

The earpiece in his ear finally hissed, and Leorio retained a sigh. “Hana?”

_ “Why do you keep calling me?”  _ she asked, almost offended — she had the  _ nerve  _ to be offended.

“Thank god you’re okay,” he breathed, then remembered he had to be mad at her. “Why do you think I’m calling you?!” 

There was a short silence on her side.  _ “Hey, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” _

“We’re using you as a  _ bait _ , of course I’m going to worry.”

_ “Not gonna lie, I almost forgot your friend was supposed to find me,”  _  Hana answered. 

“How can you forget someone was sent to kill you?!” he whisper-shouted, his nerves jittering. 

_ “I met a cute guy, that’s how. You should try it sometimes.” _

Cheadle snorted. 

Leorio pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to know who you’re fucking tonight.”

_ “His name is Elias. He’s adorable. I could tell you more, if you want.” _

He passed a hand on his forehead — damn it, that place was way too hot. Cheadle had warned him when he had picked that suit that he would be overdressed, but elegance obliged, so Leorio hadn’t listened to her. Now he was regretting it. As usual. 

“I’m good,” he mumbled. His eyes swept over the lounge — two businessmen were talking in whispers near the bar, and a woman with a feather scarf was dozing off on a plush couch in a secluded area. “Do you have any update on the situation?”

_ “Oh, he’s here, _ ” Hana casually answered. He heard crunches on her side that were enhanced by the earpiece — the girl was  _ snacking _ , on top of not taking her safety seriously. It hurt to think that her safety was compromised because of a dear friend of his, but there was no other way to get to Killua and Hana was the only one the Zoaldyecks didn’t keep tabs on.

He wiped his hands on his slacks, again. Cheadle glanced at him, this time with a little concern. Without saying anything, she took his hand in hers and entwined her fingers with his. Her cold palm soothed him a little. 

“You’ve seen him?”

_ “He’s on the second floor, watching me. Looking dramatic and angsty. You didn’t tell me your friend was a theatrical bitch.” _

Leorio closed his eyes. It was little relief, but it was better than uncertainty. “He’s probably been completely brainwashed,” he reminded, bitterness dripping in his words. He would picture the torture, the  _ abuse  _ he had had to sustain after Illumi and Silva Zoaldyeck abducted him two years ago. 

They had tried to save him before. Gon had barreled through the Zoaldyeck testing gate, demanding to see Killua just like he had when they were children, and he had found him.

Killua hadn’t recognized him.

Leorio would never run out of hatred for Killua’s family. He would never forgive them for the horrors they had inflicted to him. But he would never give up on his friend. That was the very reason they were here.

_ “Are you saying he wasn’t dramatic before his potential memory loss? That’s not what Alluka told me.” _

“I never said that,” Leorio said, and the smile that came to him was easy. “He’s a drama queen alright. Some things transcend brainwashing.”

_ “I thought so. The drama looks inherent to him.” _

He chuckled. “Hey, be careful. Friend or not, he doesn’t remember shit about us. He’s gonna be serious about killing you.”

_ “I just have a murderous Zoaldyeck on my tail, no big deal,” _ she joked. Confidence laced her words — but there was no nonchalance. In the little time he had known her, Leorio had learned one thing: Hana took her job  _ very  _ seriously. She might fuck around a little on the side, especially when pretty people got involved, but she wouldn’t lose sight of her goal. _ “On a more serious note, I’ll be careful. Really. Don’t worry about me. Worry about him, instead, and pray that I go easy on him.” _

Leorio chuckled. “Who, Killua or your Elias?”

He didn’t need to see her to imagine her cheeky smile. 

He hung up.

“So, are you going to calm down, now?”

Leorio raised tired eyes toward Cheadle. She was calm, as usual. Sometimes he wondered how she managed to keep her composure when everything went to shit — especially that he knew of the issues that plagued her mind. He had been with her for five years but he still couldn’t pick that up from her. Sometimes he suspected it had to do with her upbringing. She didn’t talk too often about her family, but he knew them to be conservative and surgical — the kind that thought expressing creativity and emotions was foolish and even dangerous. Now, though Cheadle had severed her ties with them long ago, she still retained that reserve — keeping a composed façade when inside she burned with fury.

(Okay, she was also a lot more chill than he could ever be.)

“I don’t think I’ll calm down until we’re done.” He stretched his back, exhaling loudly. “I’m sorry for dragging you through all this. I know you’re busy.”

“Well, you’re gonna need a doctor when you’re done with your ‘Killua rescue’ mission. If you’re all alive by the end of it.”

“I’m a doctor, too.”

“A  _ good  _ doctor, I mean,” she teased, elbowing him, granting him one of her rare cheeky smiles. 

He could bite that kiss right now if they weren’t surrounded by so many posh people. Cheadle wasn’t a fan of public displays of affection. Leorio would never do anything that made her uneasy, but damn, sometimes, it was hard to resist sweeping her off her feet and kissing her senselessly. 

Or maybe he was just a little bit too much in love? (Nah. No such thing.)

“You’re a bit of an asshole, you know that, Cheadle?” he joked.

Her ponytail swayed as she swiveled her head toward him — her greatest effort at a hairstyle to try and blend among the guests. “Isn’t that why you love me?”

“Might be.” 

“I thought so.”

Leorio finished his glass of wine, letting the acrid taste wake him up. “I tell myself it could be worse. I could be Gon, right now.”

“Right. I imagine rescuing your brainwashed boyfriend must be hard.”

“Would you rescue me if I were brainwashed?” he mused, a small smile on his lips. 

“I’d consider it.”

He chuckled. “Thanks, that’s real nice of you.” 

“I’ve been told I was a delight.”

“By whom? Not me, clearly.”

She narrowed her eyes, apple green turning sour. “Leorio  _ Paladiknight _ , you do not realize how lucky you are to have me in your life.”

“You’re the greatest good I’m ever gonna get, honey.”

She rolled her eyes. “Hana is rubbing off on you. Making you watch those Disney movies was a mistake.”

“Speaking of her, what if she’s not strong enough to hold him back until we get there?”

“Then she’ll die.”

“Thanks, Cheadle.”

“I don’t know why you ask me these questions, Leorio. I truly don’t know what you expect me to tell you.”

He sighed. “I guess all we have to do is wait, then.”

“Good for you that you have good company,” she said, without a smile but not without humor.

He smiled. “Good for me, indeed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Killua? Dramatic? Nahhhh :DDD  
> Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts so feel free to comment :D  
> Until next time!   
> \- Yui


	3. Thorns and Claws

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you for your support!

 

⋇

#  Chapter 2 - Thorns and Claws

⋇

Killua was tired. He was exhausted. And he was freaking pissed.

Following the princess when she had retreated to her room had been a mistake. Because  _ who  _ went in with her? Yeah. The other not-guest.

It was almost 1 A.M. and they  _ still  _ weren’t done. And Killua, being the idiot he was, was now stuck in the pristine corridor that led to the princess’s room, trapped between the bodyguards in the other room guarding the entrance of the suite — ha, suckers didn’t see him get in — and the princess who was enjoying some pleasant bed activities with her gorgeous hunk of a partner.

Killua wanted to riot.

He had considered interrupting the lovers to get done with his mission and go home, but he was in no mood to walk in on something he’d rather not see. Judging from the giggles and moans, that ‘something’ was  _ freaking good _ . Which pissed him off more. And no, it wasn’t just because he was jealous or had had his eye on the handsome not-guest — a man named Elias, as Killua had learned from the princess’s loud conversations. It definitely wasn’t that. Right.

Of course a woman that vibrant would only be just as intense in bed. Killua just wished he hadn’t had to discover it this way. She made him almost  _ not  _ regret the fact that he had to kill her. Almost.

He stifled a sigh, his forehead resting on the opposite wall to the bedroom’s, and resisted the urge to bang his head against the marble. Had she no shame? At this rate, the neighboring suite could probably hear her! Couldn’t she have some consideration for the assassin sent to end her life standing outside her bedroom like an awkward child? What were killers supposed to do while their targets exercised their sexual liberty barely a few meters from them? Root for them? Judge them? Rate their performance? Review it and give pointers on how to improve it? ‘Yeah you were a little loud, but the moan-to-giggle ratio was on point, also didn’t make the bed creak too much so there’s that, 8.5/10 would recommend.’

The princess burst out laughing.

Killua glared at the wooden door. 

It was just as if she was mocking him.

⛬

Minutes passed. Giggles didn’t.

Killua ended up sitting on the carpet, counting the royal iris pattern that bordered it. There were one hundred and thirty seven irises on the side facing him.

The princess wasn’t done yet.

In the meantime, Killua had found another reason to be pissed: the princess and her gorgeous partner had been going at it for almost two hours. That meant one thing, beside the fact that she was insatiable: her partner had one hell of a stamina. 

And there! Now Killua was even more annoyed. Because on top of having game, she just had to find _ the one guy _ who was 1- Killua’s type and 2- could please his partner for two hours straight without, obviously, tiring.

Meanwhile, Killua was alone on the other side of the door, counting flower patterns on a carpet.

He wondered what it was like to be with someone. He had no memory of ever having been in love, even though the sensation seemed familiar to him. It was strange, to have never loved and to still know, as though it were ingrained in himself, what it felt like. Maybe it was from another life, in another timeline. Maybe he had been born with someone else’s heart.

Maybe he had dreamed it.

He exhaled. 

It was useless to dwell on things like that. Though his parents’ marriage had been one of love, Illumi had made clear that Killua’s future partner would be decided for him. He had had his eyes on the daughter of a rival family, an alliance that would cement the Zoaldyeck’s position at the top of the food chain while erasing competitors, but that was before the girl killed herself. An “unfortunate turn of events” according to his father, though Killua suspected the girl’s death had a lot to do with the arranged marriage. 

Ever since, Illumi was still looking, despite Killua’s supplications. 

“Don’t be childish, Kil,” Illumi had said when Killua had brought up the topic. “You will need to have heirs of your own. It doesn’t really matter, which woman you marry and have children with. You can always love whoever you want on the side.”

“Would you like it if Father cheated on our mother?” Killua had answered in a rare moment of boldness. 

“It’s none of my business. And it’s none of yours either.”

“I don’t want my children to live with that.”

“You don’t have a say in that,” Illumi had ended their conversation.

Killua didn’t have much leverage on his life, but choosing his life partner, whether they were a man, a woman, neither, or both, that was one thing he wished he could decide for himself. The thought of having children just for the sake of it, and of being unfaithful to a woman who would be a mere birthing vessel in the eyes of his family… Killua couldn’t bear it. It was dehumanizing.

He didn’t want children. Not if they’d be brought up the way he was. He would rather remain childless than torture his own blood the way he had been. 

Of course, he would never tell Illumi.

⛬

It was exactly 2:53 A.M. when the princess’s partner finally left her room.

Killua was about to doze off when the door opened, the handsome not-guest coming through it. Fully-clothed. (Unfortunate.) 

He sauntered down the corridor, humming something about “going the distance”, hands in his pockets. Killua held his breath the whole time, fading into the darkness, taming his aura into a quiet Zetsu. 

The man — Elias — stopped walking. He turned toward Killua, frowning.

A bead of sweat glided down Killua’s neck. ‘I was counting the flowers’ wouldn’t work very well as an excuse to why he was in a suite he hadn’t been invited into.

Elias shrugged, swiveling toward the door. “Must be a cat,” he said under his breath. He disappeared through the door, closing it behind him.

Killua let out a sigh of relief. A cat, huh? 

He stood up, dusted his slacks, and  _ finally  _ could get to work. 

The door to the princess’s bedroom had both a key lock and a badge access. Killua closed his eyes, letting his fingertips see for him as he touched the badge reader, his aura outlining the electric system behind it. Then, he projected a controlled stream of lightning through it, playing with the electric levels until he found the right intensity to unlock the badge access without triggering any alarm.

A beep resounded.

From that moment, he had to act quick before she could get away. He opened the door, its lock breaking without a noise, and slipped through it.

The bedroom was plunged in darkness.

His aura still silenced, his steps soundless, he prowled toward the bed where his target was soundly asleep, his nails sharpening into claws.

When he reached it, it was empty. 

A gun cocked behind him. He didn’t see it, but its barrel stared at his back. He felt the trajectory of the bullet as though it had already pierced his head. 

He smirked. “I didn’t expect that. You’re resourceful, I have to give you that.”

“Am I resourceful,” she started, her voice familiar yet new, an edge of confidence laced into it, “or are you unprepared?”

Her steps closed in on him, muffled by the carpet but audible to his keen ear nonetheless. He frowned. Scenarios unfolded before him — dozens of possible outcomes exposed yet none of them like this one. His senses were alert, intensity sparking up his instincts. “You knew I was coming,” he thought out loud.

“Did I?”

Riddles.

The cogs in his mind shifted. Her so-called bodyguards leaving her side, the lack of guards at her bedroom door, her minimal presence in the media… So focused he had been on the rose, he hadn’t seen her thorns.

He had been set up.

With this realization came a thirst for action fueled by fear. He had to take her down, right here, and right now, or else something would happen, something that would hurt. His experience never lied. 

His feet moved by themselves on the carpet, light and airless. In an instant, he conjured near her, his palm festering lightning, lunging for her vitals with the speed and desperation of a threatened wild animal.

She gasped but reacted fast; with a swipe of her hand, a blue texture materialized in the air and Killua’s palm collided with it. 

A screen — no, a  _ shield _ .

Before he could react, she had grabbed his hand and had flung him against the wall, holding his wrists above his head with one hand; her other hand lay flat next to him on the wall. Only now did he notice she was almost as tall as he was.

“We don’t have to fight,” she hurriedly said as he struggled, eyes darting to whatever organ he could fry. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Says the girl who had a gun pointed toward my head,” he hissed. 

“Says the guy who was about to  _ kill me _ .”

“Fair enough.” He nodded toward her. “So you’re not the princess.”

“There’s  _ no  _ princess.”

He scoffed. “What a waste of time.”

“I’m here for you, not the other way around,” she explained, loosening her grip as he relaxed.

That was her first mistake.

Killua eased his way out of her grip, grabbing her own hands before she could fight back. In a second, she was the one pinned against the floor, her wrists bound above her head, face scrunched up in pain. 

“So? Not too comfortable, is it?” he mocked, lightning screeching on his other hand in an unspoken warning.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she hissed. She hoisted her legs up, using the flat of her feet to push him away. 

He stumbled back, only had time to dash away before her foot landed on his face — the marble table behind him crumbled under her force. His lightning pooled by his feet and once charged, he bolted through the room repeatedly, bouncing on the walls, floor, ceiling, rushing in every direction, too fast to be even looked at, a mere blur of white electricity trailing him. 

Rhythm echo, the improved version. 

It could buy him some time, distract her, confuse her, while he tried to figure just  _ what the fuck  _ was happening.

He had been conned. The princess didn’t exist, and the girl whose focused eyes tried to catch him was no nobility and no more target either. She was the hunter, and she had been so the whole time. 

There was no mission anymore: the wisest thing to do was to flee.

⛬

It was just as if she had read in his thought. 

He was dashing for the window when a beast — tall, three-headed,  _ hungry  _ — appeared in front of it, emerging from a fog of dark smoke.

Killua halted, flinching away from the creature as it growled at him. Panting, winded, he glanced for the door — but yet another creature was guarding it, a fiery lion with gleaming, undead blue eyes. 

He gritted his teeth.

“I don’t want to fight you,” the girl who had tricked him spoke. When he turned toward her, tattoos of vines covered her arm like a glove of glowing lace. The beasts’ eyes were the same color; they were surely her making. “I just need your cooperation, Killua.”

His eyelids twitched at the mention of his name. “Yeah, right.”

The first possibility when you were faced with a threat was to run. It was sane, usually safer, and avoided unnecessary risks.

When the threat had you cornered, you only had one option left: eliminate the threat before it eliminates you.

His mind dissociated from his body. As if something had switched within him — something feral and violent, terrified and terrifying. It was fear that streamed in his veins and instinct that sparked his nerves. He had no thought, no worry, no emotion — just one goal: kill her and run away.

What happened next was a blur. An uncertain film spinning out of its hold. He saw her, and he saw himself pounce on her, and he saw her fight back and get back to her feet and fight, fight, fight. He saw blows but felt no pain, heard her voice through a water filter. As if he lived inside his head but didn’t pilot his own body anymore. As if he were spectator of his own actions. 

In moments like these, Killua was unhinged and uninhibited. He stopped feeling, and he stopped thinking, and he stopped fearing. He was a ghost and its killer. He was pure lightning and infinite darkness.

He forgot all about rewriting her story, about everything she could have been. He just  _ needed  _ her dead.

“Snap out of it!”

The girl’s shouts reached him through his shell — he noted, in this sliver of awareness, that she hadn’t sent her beasts after him. Yet he didn’t stop. He sliced and slashed and stormed, swift as a serpent, as soundless and sly. He dodged her attacks, countered her parries, pushed her until —

“Ohhhh  _ fuck you _ !” she screamed as she caught his fists in her hands.

A sharp pain in his crotch followed by the most phenomenal slap he had ever had the displeasure to receive humbled him. He wavered for an instant — a long enough instant for hands to sprout from the floor, catch his arms, and drag him to the ground.

He gasped, wriggled from the hands that held him so closely to the floor. 

People flooded the room. People he had never seen. 

A blond man held Killua’s feet against the floor. A brunette pressed on his knees, forcing him to lay straight. Through the door, Killua’s panicked eyes darted toward another man in a suit with his hands plunged inside the ground. 

“Gon, Cheadle, Kurapika, hurry! I can’t hold forever!” the man in the corridor yelled.

“I know!” the brunette yelled back. “Hana, do your thing!” 

The girl who had subdued him,  _ Hana _ , straddled him, using her weight to hold him in place. With one hand, she pushed his chest against the floor, and with the other — her left arm, painted with vines of light — she pressed on his forehead.

“It’s gonna hurt,” she warned in a wavering voice. As though she felt sorry for him. “But we’re here to help. We’re not doing this to harm you.”

In a flash of blinding light, pain flooded Killua. It was in his head and his chest and his neck. It burned through reason, through sanity, through everything that held him together. One moment he was a man, and the other he was just pain.

His mind shut down. His thoughts died. All he knew then was that he was scared and everything hurt. He screamed, he cried, he sobbed and thrashed against the people who held him down. He heard arguments over him and the labored breathing of the girl and the constant screeching in his head as her nen burned through it.

But through it all, through this incoherent mess, this crazed panic, he also heard her voice. It was weak, frail, and in pain, just like him. “Look at me, look me in the eye,” she had managed, and with a supreme effort, he had opened terrified eyes to her own gaze. Pools of spring stared into his eyes — warm and soft, gentle as an embrace. “Just look me in the eye, hold onto me,” she repeated, her thumb still pressed on his forehead, her fingers tugging at his hair, her nen still rummaging in his brain. “It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

He held onto that thought, held her gaze as long as he could, until pain subsided to relief. 

Poison trickled from the scar on his forehead. Hana’s aura washed through his mind, uncovering lies he had believed to be true, discovering truths he had believed to be false. 

And when there was no more pain, no more relief, no more lies or truths to expose, there was nothing.

Killua blacked out.

⛬

Hana staggered on her feet as she stood up. Arms caught her before she fell, and someone asked her a question but she didn’t hear it. She focused all her remaining strengths in controlling the nen curse she had extracted from Killua’s head. It had taken a nebulous form condensed into a ball of sloshing black liquid, and it hovered over her hand. If she didn’t trap it quickly, it would try to find another host.

So Hana summoned Sae, her nen ability.

A transparent blue screen conjured near her. 

  1. > **Choose an available slot.**




Sae was an ever-growing, versatile ability Hana had been developing ever since she had learned nen, ten years ago. The three modes — Shooter, Analyser, and Eraser — were the three facets of Hana’s ability, from the least costing to the most. The Eraser was the one she had just used; it was capable in theory of exorcizing any curse as long as in return it produced a nen beast of equal strength that Hana could then control with time. 

That was the “theory”; it rarely transcended into practice. Nen curses that were too strong would simply become untameable beasts and Hana would only be the vessel of uncontrollable destruction. That, and the stronger the curse, the harder the exorcism, and the toll on her energy had to be taken into account. She was powerful; not almighty. 

Thankfully, the curse that had replaced Killua’s memories was manageable — more or less — but it was still a nasty thing that needed to be quarantined as soon as possible. A curse that could brainwash a nen genius like the Zoaldyeck heir and make him believe in forged truths was not to be underestimated. Though she had tamed worse. Her bad luck obliged.

Her finger hovered over the empty slots displayed by Sae — rows and rows of it. Some of them were used, like the cerberus and the lion she had previously used to stop Killua from escaping, but Sae still had room for more. Hana just had to be careful and choose an adequate slot — each slot had a different quarantine level, and putting a strong curse in a weak cell would be disastrous. She would know — she had tried before.

It was only when the curse was safely locked into Sae that Hana allowed herself to breathe. A headache pounded into her skull and when she reached for the warm, wet sensation under her nose, she found blood.

“Are you alright?”

She raised her eyes toward Leorio, who was kneeling by her side. Cheadle was already examining Killua, Gon looking over her shoulder. Kurapika was observing the whole scene with a mixture of concern and sternness.

“I’m good, don’t worry.”

“You always ask me not to worry, but you know I can’t do that,” he said, tilting her head one way then the other, then fishing in his pockets for a tissue he gently applied on her nose. 

“Your friend was just exorcized; I think you need to worry about him instead.”

“You’re my friend too.”

She smiled. “I just have a headache but I should be fine.”

Leorio nodded. His eyes wandered toward her bruised arms, her torn dress, the bloody scratches on her thigh. “He really did a number you.”

“I think he didn’t appreciate waiting outside while, you know…”

He chuckled. “Right. I was worried he’d kill you and your boyfriend on the spot.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“How did you even manage to pin him down? Between the time you warned us and the time we came, he could have killed you in a thousand different ways.”

“I’m not that easy to take down,” she said, acting offended. “But he  _ was  _ a pain in the ass. There are moments he really pissed me off. I had to use, uh, kinda drastic measures.”

Leorio elbowed her. “Spill the beans. What did you do?”

She looked away, playing with a lock of hair. “... I freaked out and kicked him in the balls.”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, laughing more freely than she had ever seen, now that Killua was safe and with them. “That’s my girl.”

“Your friend is lying here, wounded, and you’re laughing like a buffoon,” Cheadle called from her spot, bent over Killua to check for his vitals. “You have no shame, Leorio Paladiknight.”

Leorio stood up and joined her. “Cheadle, she kicked him in the balls.”

“Commendable,” she said, adjusting her glasses on her nose before diving back into her work. “As it should be.”

“Only did what seemed sensible to do,” Hana replied, taking the glass of water Kurapika had brought her. 

He sat next to her. He still hadn’t said a word. 

Gon, who had been silently watching Cheadle as she tended to Killua’s superficial wounds, finally spoke. “Is he alright?”

“Should be,” Cheadle said. “She went easy on him. Right, Hana?”

Hana puckered her lips. “ _ Yeahhh _ .” As easy as he did. There were times she genuinely thought she would die. The memory of it — the possibility that she wouldn’t parry his blows fast enough and would bleed to death — crawled up her spine in a shudder. Being chased by a Zoaldyeck dead set on killing her was clearly not a blessing. If the others hadn’t been there on time, she would have had to use her nen beasts — and even then, there would have been no certainty about the outcome of the fight. 

Gon didn’t laugh at Cheadle’s joke — it was a joke, right? His face was dark, his eyes grim. His concerned eyes reflected those of Kurapika, as though they sensed something beyond their perception. 

When Cheadle was done, Gon slid his arms beneath Killua’s knees and back, carefully picking him up. Hana knew what it meant for him — to see the man he loved battered and bruised and exhausted, to hold him against himself for the first time in two years — and yet she saw no relief in Gon’s grave expression. 

The first words Kurapika spoke answered her questions and confirmed her worries.

“You do realize he won’t remember anything when he wakes up, right?”

 


	4. Snowdrops for the Wounded Cat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was published as part of the Hunter x Hunter Big Bang 2019.

 

⋇

#  Chapter 3 - Snowdrops for the Wounded Cat

⋇

“What do you mean he won’t remember anything?” Leorio asked. Disbelief dripped in his voice — so did bitterness. 

Bitterness that Gon shared.

“Nen curses don’t erase memories,” Kurapika started, crossing his arms over his suit. “Memory traders do. So if he didn’t remember you when you went to Padokia, Gon, that’s because his memories were stolen. Not because he was cursed. The curse was only here to control him.”

Cheadle stood up, dusting her dress. “You think the curse was a bunch of counterfeit memories,” she reworded. “That they were planted there  _ after  _ extracting his original memories.”

Kurapika didn’t acquiesce. He didn’t need to.

Gon exhaled. He looked down onto Killua’s sleeping face — even in sleep, he looked anxious, with his eyes furrowed and his lips trembling. His long hair coiled in waves over his suit — some of its white strands were stained red. 

“I figured it wouldn’t be that easy,” Gon then voiced, his eyes lingering on Killua’s face. How he had wanted to see that beloved face — chiseled and graceful and so, so soft — and now that he did, he was a stranger to him. It hurt. It hurt to think of everything Killua had endured at the hands of his family, and it hurt to anticipate the moment he would wake up and ask who Gon was.

Hana shifted on her seat, wincing as she tried to stand up. “The curse was a bunch of crap memories, that much I can confirm. They’re not his, and they were all forged. I don’t know if his original memories are still there though. I’m not a memory trader. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Gon assured. He managed a smile but it felt forced. “You saved him. We’ll deal with whatever’s next tomorrow. Now, we all need to rest.”

Kurapika sighed. “Gon is right. I’m sorry for being the bearer of bad news, but we should prepare ourselves for this eventuality.”

Cheadle threw keys toward Leorio, who deftly caught them. “I’ll stay here a little longer with Hana. You drive the kids to the apartment and watch over Killua,” she instructed.

Cheadle always considered them to be kids; never mind that Gon was almost twenty-five. Sometimes, Gon wished things were that simple. 

⛬

Hana twiddled her fingers, staring at the dry blood that coated her nails. She had broken a nail during her fight and it now bled all over her torn-up dress, streaks of red mixing with the burgundy of dry blood on the pink fabric. 

Pity. She liked that dress. 

“So, you wanted to see me,” she started, raising timid eyes toward Cheadle. The hotel room bore a thick silence now that the others had left.

Cheadle finished packing her tools. She stared coolly at Hana, but not without empathy. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m alright.”

“No flashbacks? Intrusive thoughts? Urges?”

“Not too many.”

Cheadle crossed her arms. “You need to tell me if it’s happening again.”

“You can’t be my therapist, Cheadle.”

“And I don’t want to be. But as your friend, and as your doctor, I can’t just ignore it. What you did tonight could be triggering to you, and I’m not talking about being chased by a panicked Zoaldyeck. I’m talking about the exorcism.”

Hana’s hand lingered on her stomach. She could almost trace the puckered skin of her scar through the fabric. “I know. I’ll tell you if anything happens.”

Cheadle sighed. “Like hell you will,” she mumbled. Before she crossed the door, she pointed a finger toward Hana. “I will force you into a hospital if I find out you’re miserable and hiding it again. So I’d advise you to come to me beforehand. We care about you, even if you don’t care about yourself.”

“Is that a rare ‘Cheadle confession’?” Hana teased, her smile coming easy to her. 

Cheadle’s cheeks turned pink. “It’s a  _ threat _ , foolish girl.”

“I’m terrified. You’re so scary, Cheadle. The whole not-reaching-my-chin? Chills me to the bone.”

“Don’t take your genes for granted. I don’t need stilts to drag you by force to a therapist.”

Hana wrapped her arms around herself — exposed, suddenly, by this token of affection her friend gave her. “Thanks. I appreciate it. I promise I’ll let you know if anything happens.”

Cheadle nodded.

Then, she left.

⛬

Static. Uncertain shapes. Gurgles of water — sloshing around, muffling his breathing. Strings of light — fractals deployed across the darkness. 

Screams. Cries. His breathing picked up — flowers dotted his sight. Forget-me-not, forget-me-not. 

_ “Kil, do you know what forget-me-nots symbolize?” _

The beast. Flowers with teeth and claws. The teeth sank in his skull — poison filled his mind. Lies and truths merged into one and they piled, grew, spread across his entire being — ivy crawling and claiming him in their suffocating embrace. People vanished and others appeared and his story was rewritten and scrapped and rewritten and erased and rewritten and torn apart again and again and again. 

Without the lies that masked his real self, who was he? 

_ “You’re home, Kil.” _

⛬

He burst awake with a sharp inhale, like someone emerging from a river after nearly drowning. 

Killua’s wide eyes couldn’t settle on anything. The bed, the sheets, his tattered suit, bruised hands, the white wall in front of him, the paintings of eglantine roses on that white wall, the mirror — his exhausted face, the dark circles under his eyes, the wound on his lip… 

He closed his eyes. Massaged his temples as a headache kicked in. 

The door of the room opened — Killua’s eyes snapped open. A woman with green hair and a navy blue dress came in. 

Killua stared at her.

She stared back at him. “Finally.”

He narrowed his eyes; those apple-green eyes, the grass color of her hair, she reminded him of… “Cheadle? Cheadle Yorkshire?”

Cheadle widened her eyes beyond what should be possible. She cleared her throat, adjusted her glasses, frowned, then examined him with suspicion. “I’m honored that you remember  _ me  _ of all people, but, excuse me?”

Killua ignored her, scrutinizing her face instead. Her big, innocent eyes, her small mouth, her… her nose? “Holy shit. You… You don’t have a snout anymore?”

Cheadle sighed. Killua wasn’t sure she was relieved or disappointed. “Right. You remember me from when I was the president of the Association.”

“Wait, you mean you’re not anymore?”

“I retired years ago,” she explained, as if he was supposed to know that.

“What?! Why?”

“Had a bit of a rat problem.”

Killua looked at his torn button-up shirt. His pale veins stared back through slits in the fabric. “What am I doing here?”

Cheadle sat down on a nearby armchair. A lab coat was thrown across it back. When he turned toward her, his reflection stared back at him from the jade jewel fastened around her collar. “What do you remember?”

His mouth hung open as he rummaged through his memories, but he snapped his eyes shut as his migraine got worse. “Not much… my mind is blank. I was on a mission, and I… was set up.”

“And?”

“Why am I even telling you this?” he asked, more to himself than to her. “We have no connections whatsoever.”

“You’ve made me wish in the past that we didn’t, but unfortunately for both of us, we do.”

“How?”

“I’m dating someone close to you, so as an unlucky turn of events, we got to know each other.”

He frowned. “I don’t remember you dating anyone ‘close to me’. You don’t look like you’d be into my brother.”

Cheadle visibly shuddered. “Thank god, I have much better taste in men.”

“Well, unless you know anyone in my family, you’re not related to me,” he said as he pushed the bedsheets away. 

Cheadle didn’t stop him when he put on his shoes and wore his jacket. She watched him as one would a peculiar flower, though with more annoyance than Killua could ignore. 

“Where will you go?” she finally asked, her arms crossed over her chest, eyebrows dipping on her forehead. “You can’t exactly go back to your family.”

“And why is that?” he challenged, though deep down, he knew she was right.  _ You’re home, Kil _ .

He shivered. 

“Don’t play dumb with me. You might be amnesiac  _ and  _ an asshole, but you’re not stupid on top of that, are you? You do realize your family is the cause of this, right?”

The forget-me-nots danced in his mind, a garland of snickering little beasts. They snaked around his neck and scattered across his hair. 

And the beast of thorns and claws, the flower with teeth. 

He reached for his forehead — the scar was still there. 

He turned toward Cheadle. “What do you know?”

She crossed her arms. “You were cursed,” she explained. “By your family. Your friends did everything in their power to save you.”

“Save me…?”

“Gon hired a friend of ours to exorcize you. We faked a contracted assassination request and she passed herself as a target. It was the only way to get to you.”

Killua bumped on a single word — a single name — from her explanations. “Gon,” he repeated. The name tasted new and yet like déjà-vu. It made his heart ache.

Cheadle pursed her lips. “You should meet the others.”

“The others?”

“Leorio and Kurapika are waiting outside. Gon, too. They all stayed up to wait for you. Alluka is on her way.”

“Alluka,” he breathed. The name rolled on his tongue — a promise, a new hope. “My sister.”

“That’s one thing you got right.”

“Illumi told me she was dead,” he thought out loud. He sat back on the bed, recalling the day he had found the empty room with plushies piling on the floor. 

_ “Who does it belong to?” he asked Illumi, picking up a bunny in a frilly dress from the floor.  _

_ “A child who was born dead. Mother had a miscarriage. You were too young to remember.” _

_ “Alluka,” Killua read out from a sticker on the plushie. It was handwritten, in pink. _

_ Illumi said nothing. _

_ The next day, the plushies had been disposed of. _

“Illumi lied,” Cheadle stated. “Just like he and Silva lied about everything else. That’s something you’ll have to accept.”

His shoulders sank.

They had betrayed him. They had forced him to believe lies to control him. 

This whole time, he had been a mere puppet. 

⛬

He followed Cheadle almost mechanically. Disoriented and lost. They passed by pictures on the desk and on the corridor walls where he recognized himself as a child, and then as a teenager, and eventually an adult, but not the people who were with him. One picture had him grinning toward Cheadle, pointing toward fake cat ears on his head while she glared at him. 

When did he meet those people?

When had he been so close to them?

Cheadle opened a door with an embedded stained-glass window. Three heads turned toward them as they entered the living room, mixed expressions on their faces — from surprise to relief to sorrow. And hope.

Killua’s throat tightened. 

Their scrutiny exposed him. It burrowed through his inmost self. Instinctively, he braced himself.

“You’re awake,” the tallest man said, standing up. His blue eyes shimmered, but Killua didn’t share the enthusiasm. He remained wordless, switching from the tall man’s tired but hopeful face to those of the others. The blonde man sitting on the couch looked grave, exhaustion written under his eyes. He said nothing, as though he was resigned.

And then, there was the last one. 

The sight of him shook something in Killua. His heartbeats picked up, his hands quivered. He closed his fists, dug his nails into his palm to stop the trembling.

Brown eyes, warm and gentle, drowned into his, drowned him with emotions he didn’t know what to do with, with pools and pools of love — endless affection. 

That man was light. Everywhere, and within himself, light.

Killua’s breath hitched. Embers of longing blazed in him, yet all he saw was a stranger. 

_ “You worried us sick, going on and about with that loud island kid.” _

Pain struck him — in the back of his head, spreading like a disease through his brain. He took a step back — his shirt and his body and this room and all these people and everything, everything suffocated him. “Let me out,” he heard himself say, avoiding their gazes, raking the room for an exit.

He heard protests. Shut them out. Only registered the clack of the door unlocking. 

When Cheadle opened it, he stormed out of the room. Bumped into someone in the building corridor. Locked eyes with her — a young woman, soft and beautiful and  _ familiar _ . With the same blue eyes as his and the ink of his mother’s hair. 

He picked up his pace, his heart in his throat.

The last thing he heard was the young woman calling him.

“Killua!”

⛬

Leorio was pacing in the room. Kurapika was his usual gloomy self. Gon looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. Alluka was consoling him, gently patting his shoulder. And Cheadle… Cheadle had removed her glasses, claiming she didn’t want to see any of them anymore.

What kind of  _ mess  _ had Hana landed into. 

“Well isn’t that… sorta good news?” she started, piecing together the little info Gon had given her — that Killua had woken up, walked into the living room like a ghost, had only recognized Cheadle but still believed she was an executive of the Hunter Association, and then had stormed away at the sight of his beloved, nearly fainting when he crossed ways with his sister. What a freaking drama queen. “The sight of his boyfriend shaking him? I’d say it’s kinda good; means some part of him remembers you, no?”

“Not if that makes him run away. I don’t want to think of what could be happening to him right now,” Gon mumbled. “Next thing we know he’ll be throwing himself under a bus.”

“Please, I’ve only known him for a few hours and I’m pretty sure the worst he could do is find a secluded place to collect his mind. And cry, probably. Besides, I’d worry more for the bus than for him, honestly.”

Gon frowned, exhaling soundly. “I’m worried to death.”

“I can see that.”

“He didn’t recognize me either,” Alluka started in a hushed voice. Sorrow coated her words — it weighed on her eyelids. “I’ve never seen him so afraid.”

Kurapika sighed. “I’d be terrified, too, if I woke up with no memories in a place I don’t know, surrounded by people who claim to know me,” he started. “You have to understand that this is the same situation that happened with his family. We had to do it, and it was the only way to save him, but from his point of view we abducted him, bound him, and forced him to go through something he didn’t want.”

“He’s aware he was cursed,” Cheadle added. “That’s a start. But I also agree; he had no reason to trust us before, and he certainly doesn’t now, so we’d better give him a reason.” She scrunched her nose. “ _ You’d _ better give him a reason.”

Leorio patted her knees — they were both on the couch, and her legs were flanked across his lap. “Never knew you cared about the boy.”

“I don’t.”

“Yeah, right.” Leorio smiled. “I’m not too worried,” he affirmed — earning himself surprised looks from his friends. Hana raised an eyebrow. “I trust him. He’ll get through it. We just need to go slowly with him; he’s always been a bit of a scaredy cat, especially when it comes to getting out of his shell, and right now he must be completely lost, so now more than ever we gotta be patient. He needs space.”

“Leorio is right,” Kurapika said. “He needs time, and space. But he also needs a place to stay. He can’t just meander and live on rain and hope and the power of friendship alone.”

Gon straightened his back. “Would he accept to go back to our apartment? I could go somewhere else in the meantime if he needs time alone.”

Leorio exchanged a glance with Hana — who promptly looked away; ‘tell him yourself,’ she seemed to say. “I don’t know, Gon,” he dodged. “If just the sight of you put him in that state, what about all the memories you had in your apartment? He’d combust on the spot.”

“That’s unfortunate. Means he can’t stay at either of our places,” Cheadle said, almost cheerfully. 

Alluka crossed Hana’s eyes, her gaze fraught with desperation. “I don’t know what to do. I just imagine how scared he must be… It breaks my heart. I didn’t even have time to talk to him. And Nanika misses him too…”

Gon pulled Alluka into an embrace. “He’ll be fine. Killua is stronger than that,” he consoled, his eyebrows knitting together as though he forced himself to believe his own consolation.

“He’s strong, but he’s not invincible,” Alluka breathed. “And right after an exorcism, he’s going to have nightmares and fevers; the thought of him alone while going through that…” Her shoulders sank.

Her grief touched Hana. She could only imagine how torn Alluka felt — to see her brother in so much anguish and yet to be unable to help. 

A memory brushed Hana — rising from the past. Alluka’s quivering hands gently pressing on the wound that slashed across Hana’s abdomen, humming quietly to calm her wounded friend’s cries and control her own tears. 

“I’ve got you,” she had told Hana in a wobbling voice, drying her friend’s tears as well as her own, stroking Hana’s hair as she wriggled and sobbed and agonized on the floor. “Cheadle is on her way, but until then, I’m here with you, Hana. Hang in there.”

Hana bit her lower lip; her fingertips brushed her scar through the fabric. “He doesn’t know me,” she started, comforted as Alluka widened her eyes. “And he doesn’t have any memories at my place. I happen to have a spare room.”

Cheadle stared at her. “You do realize he’s like a wounded cat, right now, right?”  _ Do you really need that right now, Hana? _ was what Cheadle’s eyes were saying.

Hands on her hips, Hana grinned. “Well, I’m pretty good with cats.”

⛬

The evenings were cold in York Shin — even more so in April. The wind slapped Killua’s hair across his face and slipped through the tears into his shirt, making him shiver. Some of his scratches stung against the cold breeze. The wound on his lip pulsed, still hot and sore and painful.

Above him, the sky was dotted with little stars, a twilight veil with scattered pearls enveloping the city. The sun had dipped behind the sea and its last remaining rays licked the horizon with streaks of gold. Purples, pinks, and blues of various shades smudged the watercolor sky.

A scenery of buildings cut through the horizon with their geometric shapes, casting shadows of lines and edges, and soon enough the windows glowed as the sunlight dimmed. He couldn’t see the residents, but he knew they were out there, living their lives, coming back home to the comfort of their bed or the embraces of their loved ones.

He hugged himself. His hunched figure shuddered against the cold. He passed a hand through his hair, removing it from his face. He usually had a hair tie around his wrist for when his hair became impossible, but he had lost it during his fight with the fake princess — Hana. 

The day had gone by in a blink. One moment Killua was out of Cheadle’s apartment, and the next it was already sunset and he was still at the same point, petrified and lost. He had spent all his time wandering by, avoiding the main streets where people gathered, sticking to dark alleys where no one would see or mind a bruised young man in a tattered suit looking like death itself. His feet had led him there, on the top of a tall building that overlooked the city, and ever since he had been brooding alone, watching the sky and rewinding the same questions in his head. 

How could he forget everything?

Who were these people who claimed to care about him?

How could his family do this to him?

Where did he go from there?

Who was he? 

“Family is always there for you,” he murmured, quoting his oldest brother. He scoffed. “Yeah right, my ass.”

The metal door of the building roof creaked open, its old, rusty hinges squeaking and resisting as someone pushed through. 

His first instinct was to disappear — quiet his aura into a Zetsu and blend in the darkness — but when he sensed the familiar aura, he relaxed.

“How the hell did you find me?” he said, without looking at her.

Hana sat next to him, not bothering with manners or permission. “Gon told me I’d find you here.”

“And how did  _ he  _ know?”

“Apparently your dramatic ass likes coming here when you’re sad.”

“I’m not sad,” he lied.

“Yeah, right. You radiate with joy. A true beacon of happiness.”

He glared at her. “If you came here to mock me, just go away. I’m sure you’ve got other things to do, like your gorgeous boyfriend.”

She sighed. “Never knew you’d be the jealous type.”

“You don’t know me,” he muttered, closing his jacket on himself as a gust of wind slipped under his shirt.  _ I don’t even know myself _ , was what he didn’t say.

Hana handed him a coat. “Here. From Gon.”

Killua leveled her gaze, his eyes never leaving hers as he cautiously took the coat. Its fabric was rough on the outside but its inner coating was soft and fluffy.

And its scent. Heady, like grass right after you cut it, or a forest during fall. A hint of lily of the valley powdered the scent.

It smelled terribly good. Unique. Mostly, it smelled like home. Like arms that embraced him and held him close, so close. Never letting go.

He threw the coat away, his heart a skittering beast. 

Hana gawked, outrage written all over her face. “You don’t have to behave like a caveman, you mannerless moron,” she accused. “You’re gonna freeze at this rate!”

“I don’t want it,” he argued, though his body shivered and craved that scent. 

“What a fucking baby,” Hana mumbled under her breath, removing her own coat and throwing it on him. She then wore Gon’s — it was too big on her, and the sight was almost cute.

Killua raised an eyebrow at the peach pink clothing thrown on his lap. “I’m not cold. And it’s too small on me.”

“Yes you are, and no it won’t be.” She jumped to her feet, bending over him to place the soft garment around his shoulder. “I gotta do everything for you, huh? There. It doesn’t need to fit, just to protect you from the wind.”

“You seem to care a lot for someone who nearly killed me.”

“I care on behalf of people who  _ actually  _ care about you.”

He rolled his eyes, but grabbed the edges of the pink coat anyway — though he would never admit it, he  _ was  _ cold.

Hana then sat back next to him with a sigh. She said nothing for a long while, and in the meantime all he did was steal glances in her direction, matching that new, maskless image of her with what he had seen at the party. 

Her disguise had been rather genuine. Princess or not, she did radiate with warm and assertive energy and was every bit the colorful fashionista he had imagined her to be — with her floral high-waisted shorts, sheer tights, and the black lace on her corset top drowning under Gon’s coat, one would think she came right out of a magazine and not a near-deadly fight the night before. Thinking back to the party, everything she had said had probably been controlled; she had mixed just enough sincerity into her role for it to be believable while learning her other identity’s lines.

However, without the pretense, she appeared with an air of caution, of prudence — a security around her. She showed a lot and talked a lot to distract from what she didn’t want others to see — and  _ that  _ was why he had believed in her disguise. That woman was an excellent liar.

With that in mind, however, he could pinpoint all the lies she had told and that he had believed during the party — for having had no other reference to compare. Which also meant one other thing: she hadn’t lied a single time since she had stepped on that roof. Not when she had said Gon knew where Killua would be, and not when she said his friends cared about him.

He pursed his lips.

“I think I should apologize,” Hana broke the silence. He flinched, wondering if somehow she had read his thoughts. “I went a little hard on you yesterday. I just figured talk-no-jutsu wouldn’t work on you, so…”

He relaxed. “I didn’t go easy on you either. And I guess I should thank you, for ridding me of the nen curse.”

She twiddled her fingers — he glimpsed a ring on her smallest finger. “It’s nothing; your friends asked me to.”

“My friends,” he said, testing the words on his tongue. “How do you know them?”

She blinked, her mouth opening slightly. “Uh, I met Alluka first. Then she introduced the others to me.”

“You two are friends?”

“We’re pretty close,” she carefully answered.

He nodded. Without meaning to, he closed her coat around him. It was warm — a scent of grapefruit and rose tea wafted around it. “Cheadle told me they hired you,” he started. “That you faked a contracted kill to get to me.”

“Yeah. Again, I’m sorry that we tricked you. I hope you won’t resent us —  _ them  _ — too much.”

He smiled, a bit ruefully. “I’ll live, but you’re on thin ice.”  

“You don’t have to forgive me,” she resumed. “I was just a means to an end. It’s hard to reason someone whose memories were changed, so we had to do it by force. But if you gotta hold someone responsible, then it should be me.”

“That’s honorable. But right now that’s not the issue.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

She twirled a strand of her hair around a finger — twisting and untwisting. “I mean, you must be disoriented after all this.”

“That’s the least you could say, yeah.”

“And I suppose you don’t want to see your friends right now.”

He shuffled uncomfortably. Thought of the heat in those brown eyes — the way they peered at him with concern and an impossible amount of love.

“Well,” she continued, pausing in between her words as though she thought of a correct wording. “You could stay with me.”

He narrowed his eyes, shot her a confused glance. “Huh?”

“... No?”

“Nuh-uh, excuse me but I’ve heard enough of you for one night. You and your stupidly beautiful boyfriend.”

She huffed, puffing her cheeks in offense. “He’s not my boyfriend! And maybe don’t stand in front of my bedroom door next time!”

“Maybe don’t fake-hire me to kill you if you don’t want me to stand outside your bedroom,” he retorted. “Where else do you expect me to be? In your sewers?”

She tipped her chin up. “Okay, I guess you won’t mind sleeping in the  _ cold  _ night. With all the  _ wild animals  _ that proliferate. Like rodents. And spiders.”

“You done?” 

“And  _ cockroaches _ .”

Killua shuddered. His lips twisted, and he looked away, shielding his face from her. He  _ hated  _ cockroaches.

“There are no cockroaches at my place,” she insisted. “But there is a free room for you, if you want it.”

“Why would you so readily offer a room to a guy who tried to kill you?” he sighed, frustration — and confusion — palpable in his voice.

She played with the ring on her smallest finger. “I’ll be upfront with you; I owe your sister. And beyond that, I just love her a great deal and she’s worried to death about you. You need somewhere to go and she doesn’t like the thought of you alone and wandering off to wherever amnesiac ex-assassins wander to.”

He shyly turned toward her. “My sister?”

“Alluka.”

“Why do you owe her?”

She tutted. “You haven’t unlocked my tragic backstory yet.”

A smile tickled his lips. “How do I unlock that? Which boss do I have to fight?”

“First, you come with me. Then we’ll see all about that. What do you say?”

He looked away. “I don’t have anything to offer in exchange.”

“That’s fine; tell yourself I do this for her.”

“Hana — that’s your name, right? — I don’t remember a thing about her, or about any of these people. I can’t accept help on their behalf when I don’t even know what they mean to me.”

“Then tell yourself this is just about a girl offering help and a shelter.” She stood up, facing him. “You can’t just waste away and wait for your memories to come back to you. You need a new start, and you need to recover from what happened to you before you can even  _ think  _ of looking for your memories. I’m here to help with that start. That’s all. You don’t have to trust me, or to understand why I do that or why Alluka is important to me. I’m just giving you a place to stay.” She extended her arm toward him. Her hand was scarred with small wounds, and one of her nails was bandaged. “Deal?”

He stared into her eyes and all he saw was honesty. 

_ Just look me in the eye. You’re gonna be okay. _

He took her hand. 

“Okay.”


	5. Anemone after the Rain

⋇

#  Chapter 4 - Anemone after the Rain

⋇

The first days passed in a blur. 

After Hana showed him around her apartment, led him to his room, and lent him some clothes — old clothes left by her ex, awkward but it wasn’t like Killua had any other option — Killua didn’t see her anymore.

Admittedly, it was because he spent most of his days and nights huddled in his blanket, shivering with a relentless fever. And also because he outright avoided her.

She wasn’t home, most of the time. He had quickly learned she was a crime hunter and juggled various cases at the same time — her most recent one involving tailing police officers dabbling in shady business, a case commissioned by one of her friends named “Lynd” — so she was busy and stayed in the field as long as she could. Some nights she didn’t even come back, and it was only at dawn that the entrance door would open and Killua would hear her steps drag across the floor. One thing was clear: that woman was a workaholic.

However, when she  _ was  _ home, Killua wouldn’t come out of his room. The thought of being seen as he was, as he  _ felt  _ — a ghost, shivering with fevers, bruised, tired, lost,  _ ashamed  _ — was too much. He waited for her to go to bed to crawl out of his room and maybe eat a little something and shower. He tried as hard as he could to take as little room as possible, to leave no trace of his existence.

Then days turned into weeks.

The fever receded. The nightmares didn’t. 

A wave of exhaustion submerged Killua, and sometimes it felt like all he wanted to do was sleep, yet every time he closed his eyes, Illumi’s garland of forget-me-nots would fade into his vision. 

_ “Did you forget us, Kil?” _

He could barely distinguish day from night. Nightmares woke him up in cold sweat and he was too afraid to go back to sleep when he knew his brother waited in his dreams. Illumi had always had endless patience. He could wait hours for exhaustion to creep on Killua and weigh on his eyes, and then he would strike again.

_ “You’re home, Kil.” _

He was wasting away. Hovered between consciousness and unconsciousness. He even saw nightmares when he was awake — the beast flower that had poisoned his mind crawling on the ceiling.

But whenever the hallucinations would kick in, he would  focus on the noises outside of his room. 

Hana humming a Disney song while she cooked or did her laundry. Hana typing for hours on her laptop, or making phone calls with her friend Lynd — who was a police chief, as Killua had learned. Hana laughing that loud, unhinged laugh — the chiming bells, though without pretense or disguise. It kept him grounded. Reminded him he wasn’t in the Zoaldyeck estate. Instead, he was staying at a woman’s place, and that woman was loud and lively and everything Illumi wasn’t. She sang off-tune in the shower and left the TV on for background noise and at times she invited her friend-with-benefits and Killua almost felt relieved at the sheer annoyance he felt at hearing the two girls kiss and giggle — as awkward as it was, it was better than the coiling of chains or the echoes of his scream while his brother watched apathetically.

There was life in that apartment. Even when she left — the little bells on her balcony chimed with the wind and her washing-machine rumbled in the bathroom and the neighbors above talked all morning and their voices reached Killua in muffled sounds.

All of that reminded him he was safe.

And whenever he needed more reassurance, he would picture the man whose brown eyes had shaken him deeply and wonder in what life those eyes had looked at him that way.

⛬

Killua was a shitty roommate, there was no doubt about that. In the three weeks he had spent at Hana’s apartment, he hadn’t spoken to her, avoided her most of the time, and probably made her friend/girlfriend/friend-with-benefits/whatever-that-girl-meant-to-Hana wonder if the apartment was haunted. Sure, he did his own laundry, washed his own dishes, and swept his own room, but that was just basic decency and he didn’t bring anything to the table. (And honestly, there was no way he was  _ ever  _ letting anyone wash his underwear. That was way too embarrassing.)

What was worse than that was that instead of taking offense at the fact that he avoided her like the plague, Hana eventually started working less in the living room and more in her own room — whenever she wasn’t outside. It was as though she had understood that Killua wouldn’t peek out his room if she was there and gave him some space.

And that… that made him feel bad.

So one day when he was feeling particularly bold, Killua decided to take an initiative rather than gloom all day and night alone in his room: he made dinner for his roommate.

It was a simple dish. ‘Hachis parmentier’ it was called, and all it needed was minced seasoned meat, mashed potatoes, and grated cheese.

Now, as bold as he was that day, he wasn’t quite at the stage where he could dine with her just yet, so he left the dish in the microwave to keep it warm and wrote a note to her. 

**Thanks for everything.**

He arched an eyebrow. Did the dot make it sound too formal or stiff? He added another dot above the first, then a parenthesis. 

**Thanks for everything :)**

Now he sounded passive aggressive. “Thanks for nothing, bitch :)” the note seemed to say, with those two cunning dots staring into his soul.

He scrapped it and threw it away. He bit his lip, tapped the marker against the table. He wanted to convey his gratitude without sounding haughty or victimizing himself, but he also didn’t want to make it  _ all  _ about himself. 

An idea popped in his mind. He scribbled words on the post-it, then reread what he had written. 

**Hope you have a good evening**

**PS: I like your music**

He stuck the post-it to the counter and went back to his room.

The next day, she left her music on before leaving the apartment.

⛬

They spoke in notes and post-its. 

It was a limited language, but it was gentle and gave him something to look forward to. It was always pleasant to wake up and see she had slipped a note under his door. Most of the times, they said ‘Good morning! ♥’ or ‘have a good day!’ Other times, she included puns and tips. ‘I made cookies, feel free to take some! they’re to MELT for ☆’ was the last one. Killua had devoured the cookies left for him, only to repay her with a chocolate fondant and a post-it that said ‘Melt, you said?’ next to it.

The nightmares didn’t stop, but Killua grew used to them. His anxiety quieted down, and whenever he sensed another fit of panic, he pictured Gon’s brown eyes staring into his. Funny how his previous source of panic was now also his medicine. He would think endlessly about the way Gon had looked at him — with more affection than Killua had ever thought possible. Like a patch of sunlight embracing him.

What was he to Gon in his previous life? Were they friends? Best friends?  _ Boyfriends? _ It would explain why his heart raced when he thought of those eyes, or why he craved that fresh forest scent.

Killua sat on his bed, pushing his hair over one shoulder. If he ever wanted answers to his questions, he had to get out his slump. He wouldn’t ever grow if all he did as wallow in self-pity and misery and live off a kind woman’s generosity.

He had to get a grip on his life.

⛬

So, according to the internet, Killua had brain cancer, a stroke, and he had between a few hours and three months to live. Admittedly, searching information about memory loss on the web was useless since his had been caused by nen, but hey, it wasn’t like he could just hack the hunter website and there was no way he’d ever ask Milluki.

He had also blocked all of his family’s phone numbers. Rereading Illumi’s last texts, ‘Where are you?’ and ‘How did the mission go?’, had made his stomach churn. He always had this wild thought that Illumi would find him, burst through the door, kill Hana, kill those friends Killua didn’t remember. And kill his sister. So Killua had been careful, had deactivated the localization on his phone, and had resisted the urge to tell his brother to never contact him again.

He was reading a beginner’s tutorial on how to hack a website when knocks on his door made him flinch. 

He stared at the wooden door. Imagined Hana shifting from one foot to the other behind it. Checked the floor — there was no note. Swallowed, and finally stood up. 

He opened the door.

She seemed as surprised as he was. Wide green eyes blinked as she stammered a greeting, a smile on her lips. His heart did a little somersault. 

“I’m about to order from Burger King and I was wondering if you wanted anything. I mean, uh, if you want, we could eat together,” she said. “Of course if you prefer you can also eat in your room! No pressure it’s—”

“Sure.”

The word came easily to him. He could barely believe he had said it, and yet the warmth in his chest was enough proof. 

Hana grinned. “I’m glad,” she said, biting her smile as though she couldn’t contain her excitement. It was strange, that he was its source. “Burger King started delivering recently and I’m  _ sooo  _ excited to try this out. Can you believe it took them like, what, one year? To catch up with McDonald’s? But boy am I  _ glad  _ that they caught up. Have you ever tried their fries? They don’t taste like cardboard when they become cold. That and their meat has a grilled taste, it’s  _ sooo good _ ! And you can customize the sandwiches to your heart’s content — I love adding little fried onions, it’s so tasty!”

“Uh, okay.”

Boy. What a blabbermouth. That aspect of her disguise had  _ not  _ been simulated. 

They sat at the dining table — she could barely hold in place; he was still trying to convince himself to take more space. She showed him the menus and they each picked something different, and she added small snacks to share before she ordered. 

He slid a lock of hair back behind his ear, just as he glimpsed various notes in a small pile on the table. He took them, read through them with a curious gaze, and a smile brushed his lips. ‘Hey! wanna eat together?’ ‘BK is delivering! You know what’s left for us to do? :D’ ‘Can you smell… the burgers…? No? Soon you could ;)))))’ and various other attempts. 

The last one made him laugh. ‘Hot burgers in your area, open your door to meet them!’

Hana’s cheeks turned red when her gaze fell on the notes in his hands. “I can explain!” she exclaimed, a hand over her grin. “I didn’t know if you were ready yet to talk directly but also like, I thought, if I give you a note then you might feel obligated to say yes since there’s no discussion, and I didn’t want that so I just… Uh, I don’t know where I was going with this.”

His lips curled in a warm smile. She was endearing. “Thanks, Hana. I really appreciate it. Not just that, just… everything. I’m grateful.” 

She blushed, twiddled a finger around a strand of silver-blonde hair. “It’s okay. I know what you’re going through.”

“The memory loss?”

She shook her head — ‘no’ —  but said no more, leaving questions hanging. Her hand went to her stomach where he had guessed there was a scar back when she was acting like his target. Maybe he hadn’t been wrong. “Anyway, so uh, how are you feeling?”

Killua shrugged. “Better.”

“That’s good. It takes a while to recover from an exorcism, so just be patient with yourself. You might experience fevers but they’ll recede.”

“I know. It’s just that I’m used to fast recoveries, so. It’s frustrating.”

“I bet. But now more than ever, you gotta be kind to yourself.”

“Sure.” He shook his head. “I figured I needed to start off somewhere anyway. I won’t get better otherwise.”

“It’s a good mindset to have. Don’t hesitate to ask if you need help,” she offered.

“You’re already doing more than enough.” He rested his elbow on the table. “Alluka must be important to you if you’re ready to do so much for a stranger in her name.”

She briefly looked away before locking eyes with him. “Let’s just say she saved my life. And honestly? I’m starting to warm up to you.”

“It’s the fondant, isn’t it?” he teased.

“God, yes,” she moaned. “You  _ have  _ to give me your recipe.” 

He chuckled. 

“You’re cool, Hana. I like you.”

⛬

“So, I was thinking,” he started, munching on his burger. “Why a princess?”

Hana blinked. “I figured Zoaldyecks killed important people. Princesses are important. Ergo, I decided to be a princess.”

He arched an eyebrow. “I’ve never killed a princess before. Most of my contracted kills were businessmen. You know, it’s all about money and the Mafia. Mobsters. CEOs. Rich heirs. That kinda stuff.”

“... Look, can’t a girl just be a princess for one day?”

“There you go, that’s your reason.”

“Ha, I’m busted.” She stole one of his fries.

He repayed her by stealing one of hers. “And why that name?” he continued. “Oxana Styles. You created that identity, right?”

“Well, Oxana is a common Tanalean name in the Janav tribe. I would know; I’m  _ actually  _ Tanalean so I can play that part. And uh… Styles, because,  _ because _ , you know.”

His eyes narrowed into two judging slits. “Your playlists speak for you. Say it out loud. I dare you.”

“... I had a crush on Harry Styles when I was a tween, okay?”

“Are you sure that crush is dead? You just pretended you were his wife for a night.”

“I wouldn’t be out there sleeping with gorgeous hunks if I still had a crush on a boy’s band singer.”

“Aww.” he leaned in. “Speaking of which, you’re aware that Elias wasn’t a guest, right?”

“Yep.” Her greedy hands lingered dangerously near his fries. He pulled the box of fries toward him. “He’s a thief.”

Killua whistled. “He actually told you?”

“More like, I put him on the spot.”

“You just undressed and said you weren’t sleeping with a liar, huh?” he guessed.

She grinned, as cheeky as usual. “No one can resist sexy lingerie. I certainly can’t.”

“That’s fair. Also I’m taking note; next time I want to bribe you, I’ll just wear garter belts.”

She burst out laughing. “Stop it, you’d actually look great in lingerie.” She widened her eyes. “Fuck — I mean, uh, forget it. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be flirting with you.”

He blinked. “I figured flirting just came to you naturally.”

She passed a hand through her hair; it coiled in long waves over her shoulders in an almost organized, deliberate, pretty mess. He had the wild thought of running his fingers through it. “Yeah I just… flirt with people too easily. I should first make sure they’re okay with it but I just open my mouth without thinking,” she mused, laughing a little nervously. 

“I don’t mind it. I don’t have a policy against big flirts. It’s not like I’m in a relationship either, so.”

She averted her eyes. Clearly, she was the one most uncomfortable with the flirting.

“It’s because of Gon, isn’t it?” he broke the silence.

She flinched. “What do you mean?”

“You feel bad for flirting with me, because you’re thinking about him. I’m guessing he and I were a thing before.”

She bit her lower lip. “That’s not for me to tell you,” she dodged. “It’s not my story. I’d say, you should ask him directly.”

He leaned forward, crossing his arms. “I was thinking of meeting them, actually. The others, I mean.”

Hana beamed. “Hey, that’s great news.” She scratched her forehead, then drowned her fingers in her hair and let her hand rest on her head as she thought of something. “Actually, Gon’s birthday is this weekend. We could go if you want. It would be such a nice surprise for him, too.”

He shifted on his seat, exhaled. His first instinct was to refuse — anxiety prowled, the scrutiny and expectations and disappointment of these people haunted him. He put himself in their shoes, imagined losing years of affection and history and  _ friendship  _ to amnesia, and he felt their pain as though it were his, foreign as it was. But he tamed those thoughts. “I’ll think about it,” he said instead. “How old will he be?”

“Twenty-five, I think.”

Killua counted. “That makes him older than me by just two months.”

“Yeah, he’s a May 5th baby. And you?”

“July 7th.”

“Just a month before me! My birthday is on August 8th. I think I’m your age,” she mused.

He smiled. “Only twenty-four and you’ve already faked your own assassination.”

“I like to live dangerously.”

“I suppose offering hospitality to the Zoaldyeck you hired to kill you fits well into that lifestyle.”

She chuckled. “I suppose. He bakes me chocolate cakes on the side though, so what’s here not to like?”

He shook his head, less in disapprobation and more in disbelief. “I’ll need more than chocolate cakes to repay you for what you’re doing for me.”

“You really don’t have to think about that, Killua. You should focus on getting better.”

“I’ll get better if I do  _ something _ . I’m… I need to be busy. And earning some money to contribute to the household will help  _ me  _ too. I don’t want to be a freeloader.”

“I don’t see you that way at all,” she argued. 

“I know. But I can’t spend all my days locked in a room anyway. If I’m gonna stay then I want to offer something in exchange. You know, like a real roommate.”

She leaned on the table. “Is it your pride talking?”

“Maybe. But it’s also my gratitude.”

Her gaze softened. “Do what you’re comfortable doing. Just know that you don’t have to give back anything; that’s not how I roll.”

“Well, I like to think reciprocity is a basis in every relationship, including, uh, roommate-ship.” He examined his hands, his gaze flicking between them and her tilted face. “And friendships.”

She grinned. “Does that mean we’re friends?”

His cheeks warmed a little. A smile tickled his lips. 

“I guess we are.”

**Author's Note:**

> Here you go! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Let me know in a review what you thought or just if you liked it :D  
> Next update should come fast since this chapter was short. I hope you look forward to it :3c
> 
> Until then, bye! 
> 
> \- Yui


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